Greenberg Statement at National Conference on Capital Punishment

    10 

a 6 

72 S 
‘i oe 

President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

egal ‘efense lund Jack Greenberg 
Director, Public Relations 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NiGiT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

Statement by Jack Greenberg, director-counsel, 
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 
Summit Hotel, May 3, 1968, 10:00 a.m. 

At this first National Conference on Capital Punishment, we are: 

* reporting on the current LDF nationwide legal drive in the 

courts to have the administration of capital punishment in the 

United States declared unconstitutional; 

* reporting on the cases which have produced stays of execution 

for all 75 men in California, 55 in Florida, and numerous others 

in the nation's death rows; 

* informing you of ow comprehensive national network of legal 

assistance to the men on death rows across the country; 

* and advising you of the availability of a public information 

center on capital punishment litigation. 

The Conference begins here at the Summit Hotel at noon today and 

runs until Sunday morning, May 5. It brings together attorneys from 

the 37 states that still retain the death penalty. 

They are joined by the country's leading experts on capital 

punishment from the social sciences, religious organizations, aboli- 

tionist groups, and concerned members of the public, 

The efforts of all of us are directed toward ending this archaic 

practice of state killing which can find no excuse in today's society. 

Specifically, the Conference sessions will pull together, define 

and then establish a national network of legal expertise, scientific 

documentation, and community resources to join forces in focus on the 

current battle in the courts over capital punishment. 

We hope to provide the most complete legal representation possible 

to the nation's condemned men. Our new network will bring our legal 

thinking and experience to the local attorney who seeks to save a life 

but is confronted with a dearth of time and expertise. 

This Conference is an outgrowth of the LDF's longstanding interest 

in ending capital punishment. We are presently representing more than 

half of the 400 men on the death rows of America. 

Our involvement grew from years of experience with death cases in 

(more 

Ss 



Statement by Jack Greenberg 2. 

the South where there exists the death penalty for rape, inflicted 

disproportionately in cases where they have been charged with rape of 

white women. Of the 400 persons executed for the crime of rape since 

1930, 90 per cent have been Negroes: yet in the past this figure 

alone was not considered proof of racial discrimination in the courts. 

The LDF sponsored an extensive sociological survey during the 

summer of 1965 of 2,500 rape cases in the southern states involving 

both white and Negro defendants, to determine objectively and scien- 

tifically whether any factors other than racial discrimination could 

account for the high rate of death sentences for the Negroes convicted 

ef raping white women. 

It was the first study of its kind. 

Results of this survey have been introduced into evidence in 

courts throughout the southern states. The Supreme Court of the 

United States, in one of our cases, has ruled in effect that the 

claim of racial discrimination is worthy of careful consideration by 

the courts. 

As a result of this experience, we have become familiar with the 

particularly vicious procedures which underlie the administration of 

capital punishment in the United States, both for Negroes and whites. 

These procedures make racial minorities, the deprived and downtrodden 

the peculiar objects of capital charges, capital convictions and 

sentences of death. 

We learned that after the routine state appeal had ended the vast 

majority of these condemned men were left penniless, friendless, and 

lawyerless in the face of death. 

We, therefore, took action (and will continue) without regard to 

race in behalf of men on death row across the country, challenging 

under the Federal Constitution the most egregious failures in the 

administration of capital punishment: 

OUR LEGAL ARGUMENTS 

1) That persons opposed to capital punishment (now 50 per cent of 

the population) are excluded from service on the guilt and 

penalty determinations of capital juries, denying capital 

defendants a representative jury, and leaving the decision in 

the hands of the less enlightened, more vengeful elements of 

(more) 



Statement by Jack Greenberg 3. 

society. 

2) That the law provides no legal standards for the choice 

between life and death, leaving the decision in the unfettered 

and arbitrary discretion of this jury. 

3) The determinations of both guilt and penalty are made at the 

same time by the same jury, forcing the defendant either to 

refrain from placing evidence in mitigation on the penalty 

question before the jury or giving up the privilege against 

self-incrimination on the guilt issue. In other words, he is 

denied a fair trial, on either the guilt issue or the penalty 

issue or both. 

4) That the death penalty, when considered in light of evolving 

standards of decency, has become cruel and unusual punishment 

in today's society. 

5) That states are obliged to provide the legal representation 

for all men on death row for the many critical procedures-- 

including clemency hearings--available to them after the 

routine state appeal is ended. 

Two focal points of our litigation are California and Florida. 

Courts in those states have issued class stays to all of the 55 men 

on death row in Florida and the 75 men on death row in California, 

procedure unique to capital litigation. 

Four executions were halted in recent weeks in South Carolina, in 

Texas, and we are currently taking efforts to halt several executions 

scheduled across the country. (No execution has been carried out in 

the United States since June 2, 1967, when a man who refused all 

legal assistance was executed in Colorado.) 

We have assigned a team of attorneys in our New York headquarters 

headed by Professor Anthony Amsterdam of the University of Pennsyl- 

vania and Assistant Counsel Jack Himmelstein, to implement this pro- 

gram. We are in constant touch with attorneys and social scientists 

across the nation and maintain a running calendar of sentences, 

pending executions, and efforts to halt such actions. 

Reporters interested in a week-by-week analysis of the status of 

capital punishment litigation can secure such from our Public Infor- 

mation Department and the attorneys mentioned. 

a